There is nothing like preparing yerba mate traditionally. Holding a warm gourd in your hands, sipping on a hot delicious healthy beverage out of the bombilla, becoming more relaxed and focused at the same time. Traditional mate is for those who are not in a rush, who value patience and are not looking for shortcuts or magic pills. You can sip on a traditionally prepared mate for hours during the day, it can be your companion during your work, study or leisure time, erasing borders between a drink and a lifestyle. Let’s explore one of the most divine yet humble pleasures known to man and learn how to prepare mate traditionally, and what you’ll need for a perfect, delicious and effortless mate.
What is a traditional mate?
Mate (pronounced [MAH-teh]) is a traditional South American caffeine-rich infused drink, very popular in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Southern Brazil (the term chimarrão is used there more often). It is prepared by infusing dried leaves of yerba mate with hot water in the gourd, which is traditionally made from either calabash or wood, refilling it multiple times and drinking it through a straw with a filter at the end, called bombilla.
History of mate
The practice of drinking mate originates from Guaraní and Tupí tribes, who were consuming it for its medicinal properties for centuries before arrival of first Europeans to South American continent. The word mate is believed to originate from Quechua word mati for the calabash gourd used to make it. Later it was adopted by Jesuits and became the part of culture on the lands of modern Paraguay, hence the scientific name of yerba mate — Ilex Paraguariensis, or Paraguayan Holly.
The consumption of mate became more and more widespread from 1600s and was commercialized with the spread of industrialization in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. As of 2024, Argentina is the largest producer of yerba mate, followed closely by Brazil, while Uruguay on the other hand is by far the largest per capita consumer. Today, mate is a huge part of the culture in those countries, where they are honoring the traditional way of preparing it, and you can find people drinking mate in almost every household, as well as in public parks, at work, etc.
Why prepare yerba mate traditionally
In my personal opinion, a traditional way of making mate is the best way to enjoy the nuances of yerba mate, both in terms of the taste and durability, but also the ritual and the ceremony. Traditional preparation is what separates mate from other similar infusions, such as tea or coffee; it is what makes mate so unique and fun. It lets you enjoy the look and feel of different shapes, sizes and materials of gourds and bombillas, as opposed to drinking the infusion from the same cup or mug.
While any way of brewed yerba mate is good and healthy for you, I also believe that traditional hot mate is the best way to get all the beneficial vitamins and minerals from the plant, because you’re not steeping it once, but refilling the gourd multiple times, gradually extracting everything yerba mate has to offer. And that includes caffeine — instead of chugging a giant mug of beverage, like you do with a coffee for example, and bluntly introducing a huge amount of caffeine into your bloodstream, the way traditional mate is consumed allows you to get the steady and gradual stream of caffeine into your system, making you more focused and clear-headed, as opposed to having jitters and then crash afterwards.
What you’ll need
Preparing hot mate is not as intimidating and hard as it may look at first. There are only few required accessories and ingredients that you’ll need in order to enjoy an authentic traditional mate, with some optional quality of life tools that are highly recommended in order to make your experience more enjoyable and hassle-free. You can also easily stay within a pretty tight budget if it is your concern — you don’t have to buy fancy artisanal gourds and bombillas and expensive high-tech kettles and thermoses in order to enjoy traditional mate.
Yerba mate for traditional hot mate
You can’t go wrong with pretty much any yerba mate when it comes to preparing a traditional hot mate — it all depends on your taste and preferences. Some may say that Paraguayan brands are more suited for cold tereré and infusing those yerbas with hot water will make an overly bitter and smoky mate, but personally I enjoyed most of Paraguayan yerbas with hot water as much as with cold water. If you’re new to mate in general you can check out the selection of the best yerba mates for beginners, where I recommend some of my personal choices for a first-timers. You can also head to our Reviews section that will help you better understand what different yerba mate brands have to offer and which ones will suit your palate more.
Piporé Con Palo
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Canarias Serena
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Gourd for mate
One of the two most crucial accessories for traditional mate is a gourd. My favorite materials for a gourd are the most ancient and traditional — calabash and wood. But not just any wood — the most common ones here are a soft algarrobo wood or a majestically-smelling palo santo wood.
Palo Santo Wood Wrapped Aluminum Gourd
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Algarrobo Wood Gourd
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Check PriceDon’t be intimidated by a calabash gourd — it is surprisingly sturdy and reliable, and with proper care will not give you any troubles and will last you a lifetime. The heavenly smell of dried calabash adds to the whole mate experience and rough walls on the inside make preparation much easier than in other materials, such as stainless steel or ceramic.
Poro Calabash Gourd
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Check PriceFor a less authentic experience you can opt for a more modern options, such as stainless steel, silicone or glass, which have their own benefits, such as easier maintenance and higher resilience.
Un Acero Stainless Steel Gourd
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Silicone Mate Gourd
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Check PriceBombilla for mate
The second of the two most crucial accessories for traditional mate is bombilla. The choice of bombilla is highly dependent on the yerba mate and the gourd that you chose. Make sure that the length of bombilla is appropriate to the size of the gourd — the smallest calabash gourds will require bombillas that are approximately 14-16 cm long, while an average-sized gourd will require a bombilla that is about 20-25 cm long. The coarser the yerba, the more options you have when it comes to filtration systems. For example for most of Argentine and Paraguayan brands you will be fine with a slotted or spring bombillas.
Steel Flat Bombilla Chata
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Steel Bombilla With Spring Filter
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Check PriceIn order to prepare and enjoy Uruguayan yerba mate on the other hand, you are pretty much forced to go with a spoon bombilla which will allow you to achieve a much better filtration and will help with maintaining the mountain, which we’ll talk about a bit later.
Pico de Loro Spoon Alpaca Bombilla
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Check PriceWater for mate
Often times water is an afterthought, but in reality it is very important for mate. Traditional authentic mate is not a coffee or some of the teas where you infuse those with boiling water. Don’t ever do that with mate! Traditional mate is meant to be sipped as soon as you fill the gourd with water, so using a boiling water will burn your mouth and expose you to a higher risk of cancer. In addition to that, boiling water ruins the taste of yerba mate, making it overly bitter and disgusting.
To make mate traditionally you’ll need two types of water — a room temperature water and hot water. The common range of temperatures for hot mate is between 60°C and 85°C / 140°F and 185°F . What exact temperature of water to use then? In my personal experience the temperature depends on the yerba you’re brewing. Some yerba mates open up at higher temperatures, such as 80°C - 85°C / 175°F - 185°F , and for other yerbas such hot water destroys the delicate notes that flourish in a lower range, at about 60°C - 65°C / 140°F - 150°F . In my reviews I go into details of specific temperatures, so you can check them out if you need a recommendation for what exact water is better for every given yerba mate.
Kettle for mate
In order to make water for mate hot you’ll need something to heat it up. The most common utensil for heating the water is a kettle. Most likely you already have it in your household, but if you don’t, I highly recommend getting one with a temperature control — that way you can heat up your water to an exact temperature that you prefer without the risk of overheating and boiling it.
Fellow Corvo Electric Kettle With Temperature Control
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Gooseneck Kettle With Thermometer
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Check PriceThermos for mate
To me, a thermos or a vacuum flask is an indispensable companion for my mate. Yes, you can simply refill your mate straight from the kettle, but constantly reheating the water is pain in the ass, and the quality of life that thermos offers to the mate experience makes it a crucial accessory, albeit objectively not a must-have. Plus, a vacuum bottle allows you to take your mate on the go, which is another reason to add it to your yerba mate “toolbox”.
Stanley Classic Legendary 1-liter Vacuum Bottle
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Check PriceThere are tons of vacuum flasks on the market, but believe it or not, there are ones that are made specifically for mate! This thermos offers a convenient spout that allows you to pour water precisely even into the smallest poro gourds without spilling.
Pico Cebador Thermos
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Check PriceInstructions
Now it’s time to finally make some mate! Prepare your favorite yerba mate and accessories, and let’s get started.
Preheat thermos with boiling water
(Optional step) Fill your thermos with boiling water for at least 30 seconds to keep your water hot for longer time. Don’t foget to seal the lid of your thermos so that the heat won’t escape.
Prepare hot water for mate
Fill your kettle with a clean drinkable water. Then heat it up to a desired temperature in range between 60°C and 85°C / 140°F and 185°F. Discard the boiling water from first step. Finally, fill up your thermos with hot water.
Fill the gourd with yerba mate
While you’re waiting for the kettle to heat up, fill your gourd 2/3 to 3/4 with your yerba mate of choice.
Shake the gourd upside down
Cover the opening of the gourd with a palm of your hand. Then turn the gourd upside down. Gently shake the gourd couple of times. After that, slowly turn it back, maintaining the mountain of yerba.
Shaking upside down ensures that the smallest particles in yerba mate will end up at the top of the mountain of yerba, while larger leaves and stems will end up at the bottom of the gourd, helping with filtration and preventing the clogging of bombilla.
Pour room temperature water into a waterhole
Carefully add room temperature water on the other side of the slope in the gourd to prime the yerba mate and make it more moldable. Set the gourd aside for at least 30 second at a slight angle to allow yerba absorb most of the water.
Insert bombilla, refill with hot water and enjoy!
After most of the room temperature water is absorbed, you can insert bombilla on the opposite side of mountain of yerba. Mold the mountain to achieve a nice separation. Once your mountain s looking nice and sharp tuck the bombilla under it in such way that it firmly sits inside the gourd and does not wobble. Then, simply pour hot water from a thermos into the waterhole in the gourd. Sip and enjoy!
Next steps
Now that you prepared traditional mate, the only thing left is to finish it! Keep refilling your gourd with hot water and sip it immediately, until you feel that mate starts to lose flavors. When this happens, you can either turn the yerba and expose the dry side of the mountain, or flood the mate if the mountain is not yet too firm and packed. After that you’ll see that there are still a lot of flavors left in your mate! Keep refilling it with water until it starts to lose flavor again, meaning that it reached lavado, or in other words became completely washed out. In a properly made traditional mate, lavado is reached on average at about 15 to 25 refills, give or take.
Congratulations! You have had a traditional mate. Make sure to dispose the washed out yerba — either throw it away or compost it if you can. Clean the gourd and bombilla with hot water and dry them up with some paper towels.
Answering common questions
I can already see some of the questions that may arise after you have learned how to prepare a traditional mate. Let me answer those questions and clear some air.
Why do we need to use room temperature water?
Some may say that using room temperature water is unnecessary, and to a certain degree it is — you will not all of a sudden ruin your mate by not adding some room temperature water to it first. But, in my experience it is an easy and quick step that achieves few little things: primes yerba mate, protecting it from a hot water, making it tad smoother and less bitter; blooms yerba mate to open up and slightly enhance its flavors; makes yerba mate more malleable and allows you to start molding the mountain of yerba before sipping, lowering the chances that you will clog your bombilla, which is crucial for finer Uruguayan and to a certain extent Argentine sin palo yerbas. You can skip adding room temperature water if it feels a redundant waste of time to you and instead add hot water right away, but personally I still do it, since I’m usually already waiting for a kettle to heat up.
Why do we need to create a mountain of yerba?
For some reason the mountain of yerba offends a lot of people online. Some say that it is unnecessary and pointless, others consider it a modern fad that is a product of a snob culture. Personally, I am a firm believer that mountain is necessary for an effortless, balanced and longest mate.
As I mentioned earlier, the biggest problem with finer yerbas, such as most Uruguayan ones, is the fact that it is very easy to clog your bombilla. Having a mountain means that you have a clear separation between the yerba and the water, so that the bombilla is not fully surrounded by a goopy yerba.
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It also means that only a part of yerba mate is exposed to water at first, guaranteeing that your first sips will not be overly concentrated and bitter, while the mountain is slowly penetrated with hot water that gradually washes out the flavors of yerba mate, making sure that you have a steady balanced taste for as long as possible. Without the mountain, you expose all the yerba in the gourd to a hot water, making it too strong and concentrated in the beginning, and abruptly tasteless very shortly as you extracted all the flavors from all the yerba mate at once.
***
I hope I was able to convince you that preparing mate traditionally is not only unique, interesting and authentic experience, but also is not that hard or intimidating. Even if you struggled your first time, don’t get discouraged — give it another shot! Believe me that you efforts will be rewarded after a while, and eventually you will enjoy a traditional mate unlike any other beverage.
Make sure to stay tuned for more insights and explore this wonderful drink with us and check out Reviews section to get more inspiration for what yerba mate to try next!
How was your first traditional mate? What yerba mate did you use? Do you still have questions left? Share it in the comments!
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Chimarrão
Yerba mate
Gourd
Bombilla
Mate
Durability
Tereré
Algarrobo
Palo santo
Turning the yerba
Mountain of yerba
Flooding
Lavado
Molding
Sin palo
